Saturday, December 8, 2018

Waikato Times letter of the week #87

From the edition of Saturday 8
December. As always, spelling, punctuation, grammar and logic are exactly as
printed in the Waikato Times.

This
one concerns the Waitaha people, who according to Barry Brailsford were here
before the Maori. Michael King demolished Brailsford’s first book about this in
Metro in 1995 (and later in his 2003 Penguin History of New Zealand). Soon
after, Bob Harvey, then Waitakere mayor, made me spend two hours in Brailsford’s
company being harangued about the Waitaha and the evils of Michael King. Until
then I had considered Bob a friend.

History
teaching backed

Pou brings wars to school yard. Guest speaker Sir
Harawira Gardiner status – “a fundamental building block of any civilised
society is an understanding of its history.” For 150 years, the New Zealand
wars had “Danced in the Shadows” of mainstream learning”.

If we are to teach New Zealand history, be it war
history, or general history, then it is our responsibility to start at the
beginning, not halfway as mentioned. Go back to when man first set foot on New
Zealand soils. The real tangata whenua of New Zealand, the
Kahupungapunga/Patupaiarehe/Waitaha peoples.

What became of them, and why are these people and
their history being deliberately suppressed even today. “Who are we to deny
them their rights to be heard, and to be remembered”.